A C# implementation of gRPC.
Beta
Windows
Open Visual Studio and start a new project/solution.
Add NuGet package Grpc as a dependency (Project options -> Manage NuGet Packages). That will also pull all the transitive dependencies (including the native libraries that gRPC C# is using internally).
Linux (Debian)
Add Debian jessie-backports to your sources.list file. Example:
echo "deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main" | \ sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
Install the gRPC Debian package
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install libgrpc0
gRPC C# depends on native shared library libgrpc_csharp_ext.so (Unix flavor of grpc_csharp_ext.dll). This library is not part of the base gRPC debian package and needs to be installed manually from a .deb file. Download the debian package libgrpc_csharp_ext from corresponding gRPC release on GitHub and install it using dpkg.
# choose version corresponding to the version of libgrpc you've installed. wget https://github.com/grpc/grpc/releases/download/release-0_11_0/libgrpc-csharp-ext0_0.11.0.0-1_amd64.deb dpkg -i libgrpc-csharp-ext0_0.11.0.0-1_amd64.deb
Open MonoDevelop and start a new project/solution.
Add NuGet package Grpc as a dependency (Project -> Add NuGet packages).
Mac OS X
WARNING: As of now gRPC C# only works on 64bit version of Mono (because we don't compile the native extension for C# in 32bit mode yet). That means your development experience with Xamarin Studio on MacOS will not be great, as you won't be able to run your code directly from Xamarin Studio (which requires 32bit version of Mono).
Install homebrew. Run the following command to install gRPC C# native dependencies.
$ curl -fsSL https://goo.gl/getgrpc | bash -
This will download and run the gRPC install script, then install the latest version of gRPC C core and native C# extension. It also installs Protocol Buffers compiler (protoc) and the gRPC protoc plugin for ruby.
Install 64-bit version of mono with command brew install mono.
Open Xamarin Studio and start a new project/solution.
Add NuGet package Grpc as a dependency (Project -> Add NuGet packages).
You will be able to build your project in Xamarin Studio, but to run or test it, you will need to run it under 64-bit version of Mono.
You only need to go through these steps if you are planning to develop gRPC C#. If you are a user of gRPC C#, go to Usage section above.
Windows
The grpc_csharp_ext native library needs to be built so you can build the gRPC C# solution. You can either build the native solution in vsprojects/grpc.sln from Visual Studio manually, or you can use a convenience batch script that builds everything for you.
> REM From src/csharp directory > buildall.bat
Open Grpc.sln using Visual Studio. NuGet dependencies will be restored upon build (you need to have NuGet add-in installed).
Linux
$ sudo apt-get install mono-devel $ sudo apt-get install nunit nunit-console
You can use older versions of MonoDevelop, but then you might need to restore NuGet dependencies manually (by nuget restore), because older versions of MonoDevelop don't support NuGet add-in.
Compile and install the gRPC C# extension library (that will be used via P/Invoke from C#).
$ make grpc_csharp_ext
$ sudo make install_grpc_csharp_ext
Use MonoDevelop to open the solution Grpc.sln
Build the solution & run all the tests from test view.
gRPC C# is using NUnit as the testing framework.
Under Visual Studio, make sure NUnit test adapter is installed (under "Extensions and Updates"). Then you should be able to run all the tests using Test Explorer.
Under Monodevelop, make sure you installed "NUnit support" in Add-in manager. Then you should be able to run all the test from the Test View.
After building the solution, you can also run the tests from command line using nunit-console tool.
# from Grpc.Core.Test/bin/Debug directory $ nunit-console Grpc.Core.Tests.dll
gRPC team uses a Python script to simplify facilitate running tests for different languages.
tools/run_tests/run_tests.py -l csharp
Internally, gRPC C# uses a native library written in C (gRPC C core) and invokes its functionality via P/Invoke. grpc_csharp_ext library is a native extension library that facilitates this by wrapping some C core API into a form that's more digestible for P/Invoke. If you get the above error, it means that the native dependencies could not be located by the C# runtime (or they are incompatible with the current runtime, so they could not be loaded). The solution to this is environment specific.
If you are developing on Windows in Visual Studio, the grpc_csharp_ext.dll that is shipped by gRPC nuget packages should be automatically copied to your build destination folder once you build. By adjusting project properties in your VS project file, you can influence which exact configuration of grpc_csharp_ext.dll will be used (based on VS version, bitness, debug/release configuration).
If you are running your application that is using gRPC on Windows machine that doesn't have Visual Studio installed, you might need to install Visual C++ 2013 redistributable that contains some system .dll libraries that grpc_csharp_ext.dll depends on (see #905 for more details).
On Linux (or Docker), you need to first install gRPC C core and libgrpc_csharp_ext.so shared libraries. See How to Use section for details how to install it. Installation on a machine where your application is going to be deployed is no different.
On Mac, you need to first install gRPC C core and libgrpc_csharp_ext.dylib shared libraries using Homebrew. See above for installation instruction. Installation on a machine where your application is going to be deployed is no different.
Possible cause for the problem is that the grpc_csharp_ext library is installed, but it has different bitness (32/64bit) than your C# runtime (in case you are using mono) or C# application.